Not as loyal

Thierry Henry has claimed that Arsene Wenger is no longer as loyal to contract rebels Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil following the start of the season.

The pair have of course suffered injury issues since the summer and Mesut Ozil was forced out for the weekend’s win – but Henry has looked at the season as a whole so far and made an interesting point.

“Listen, there’s something I’ve seen that I didn’t see for a very long time with the Arsenal side and Arsene doing what he did,”Henry said on Sky Sports.

“More often than not, when Alexis Sanchez was back, whether he’s fit or not, he plays.

“Ozil, whether he’s fit or not or if he trained a lot or not, he plays.

“The other day I saw something at Chelsea, okay he (Sanchez) didn’t start at Chelsea, but when he came on they put him up front because they were so well organised.

Maybe we’re reading a bit too much into that but this is something that Arsene wouldn’t have done back in the days. ’You’re back, you’re the man, you play’.

“The other day was like ‘hang on a minute, that team has been working hard, we’re going to go to Chelsea like that’.

“Now Ozil comes on and Alexis comes off.

“There’s something I didn’t see before that now he said at the beginning of the game ‘the team is playing well, so he’s like any other player, he has to wait a bit’.”

International break

Arsenal now go into the international break with another three points on the board and will want to make sure all their players stay fit, with Alexandre Lacazette showing just what he can do as a forward so far this season, and Alexis Sanchez working his way back to full fitness after a troublesome summer.